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Whoa! Marty Peretz brings the direct-email throwdown

Yowsers, New Republic co-owner Marty Peretz is up for a fight! Check out this feisty excerpt from my most recent email from the New Republic:

You may want clear opinions from The New Republic or from any magazine of political commentary. But you certainly don’t want predictable opinions or simple opinions, which, alas, is what you get from The Nation and the National Review, The Weekly Standard or The American Prospect. Why, I bet that you could write their articles in advance. No challenge, no mystery, no surprise, no puzzling through of argument. Not like The New Republic.

Clearly our Marty is not content merely to bait Slate‘s Jack Shafer with references to long-ago grudges (inspiring our Dark Lord to hammer back accordingly). Forget about Stefan Beck and Ben Kunkel; this is set to be an intellectual battle of staggering proportions. Fire back, Katrina Vanden Heuvel! Thow it down, Bill Kristol! This could get interesting, or at least provide another excuse to write “Throw it down, Bill Kristol!” As long as our Perpetually Pugnacious Peretz keeps this up, it just might actually happen.